Ontario Government is introducing updated personal and commercial licence plates along with a new driver’s licence design. The licence plate and driver’s licence renewal process enhance the quality, design and production of both important products while saving taxpayers millions of dollars each year.
Starting February 1, 2020, all licence plates issued will be of the new plate design.
Ontarians will also be able to voluntarily purchase a new licence plate featuring one of two optimistic slogans:
- Ontario Passenger Plates will feature the tagline “A Place to Grow” harkening to Ontario’s unofficial “A Place to Stand, a Place to Grow” anthem first debuted at Expo 67.
- Ontario Commercial Plates will feature the slogan “Open for Business” which reflects the province’s renewed commitment to economic growth and job creation across the province.
The new licence plates and driver’s licence will also feature a renewed version of Ontario’s classic trillium logo, part of a refreshed brand identity that will be implemented across the entire government.
The new design of Ontario driver’s licences, which includes the new Ontario logo, will be available in the fall.
“The driver’s licence is a tangible touchpoint between the citizen and the government of Ontario. With a new brand we have taken this as an opportunity to showcase the new logo to drivers across Ontario,” said Jeff Yurek, Minister of Transportation. “By February 1, 2020, you can expect to start seeing these new technologies and designs on both the front and rear plates of vehicles across Ontario.”
The government is also ensuring that police have the tools they need to keep roads and communities safe by improving the quality of Ontario’s licence plates and keeping both the front and rear licence plates on vehicles.
The government has delivered a new visual identity directive across the entire public sector that will explicitly prohibit the spending of taxpayer dollars on new logos or other visual identifiers going forward. Since 2011, the ministries and agencies of the Ontario government wasted more than $2 million on visual identity work that only served to fragment the Ontario government’s brand and confuse the public.
“We promised to work hard for you and provide you with a better, more people-focused government,” said Peter Bethlenfalvy, President of the Treasury Board. “By making this new brand and visual identity a government-wide standard, we are also saving taxpayers’ money by putting a stop to a wasteful practice that we saw taking place across government.”
“While the new trillium logo looks like a classic, it has also been specifically designed to meet the highest standards of accessibility while remaining digitally friendly and adaptable across all platforms and in both languages,” said Bethlenfalvy.
Existing visual identifiers will be retired and replaced by variations of a flexible and adaptable brand system based on the new trillium. This will be done in a “no-waste” manner to allow different bodies to exhaust their pre-existing brand collateral before adopting the new standard. Revenue-generating government bodies with existing brand identities will be managed on a case-by-case basis.
Quick Facts
- Ontario issues approximately 3.6 million licence plates per year total, including approximately 2.4 million passenger and 580,000 commercial plates.
- Modernizing the licence plate and how the plate is produced will save taxpayers millions of dollars each year. In addition to savings associated with the plate itself, significant year-over-year savings will be realized through the planned deployment of new, on-demand manufacturing and delivery technologies that will dramatically reduce the need for inventory warehousing and handling, streamline production, improve the customer experience, and reduce the waste of core inputs such as aluminum.
- The province’s licence plate was last redesigned in 1982.
- Ontario’s current plates are beaded and oversized compared to the North American standard for size. The new Ontario plate will use high definition sheeting that is stronger, brighter and longer lasting than the current Ontario licence plate and is proven technology used across other North American jurisdictions.
- This new logo will achieve millions of dollars of cost savings across government. Just since 2011, taxpayers have paid over $2 million for the government to dilute its own brand.
April 15, 2019, Ministry of Government and Consumer Services
Source: https://news.ontario.ca/mgs/en/2019/04/open-for-business-and-a-place-to-grow-new-licence-plate-and-drivers-licence-to-reflect-ontarios-opti-2.html
